This disclosure relates generally to the field of network management. More specifically, the disclosure provided herein relates to remotely accessing customer-premises equipment (“CPE”) devices located on a local area network (“LAN”) across a connected wide area network (“WAN”).
Many network service providers (“NSP”) have leveraged their Internet Protocol (“IP”) WAN to provide an expanded line of services to customers beyond traditional Internet connectivity, such as television and telephone services. This has resulted in an increase in the number and diversity of CPE devices located in a customer's home or office. These CPE devices are often located on a LAN on the customer's premises that is connected to the NSP's WAN through a gateway. The gateway often acts as a firewall between the WAN and the LAN, making the CPE devices inaccessible remotely for administration or collection of operational (status) and performance data by the NSP.
Protocols and standards exist for accessing and managing CPE devices located on a remote customer-premises LAN, such as that described in the Broadband Forum's Technical Report TR-069 entitled “CPE WAN Management Protocol.” However, these protocols often require that the gateway and the CPE devices implement uniform protocol stacks and technology, requiring the manufacturers of the various devices to work together to implement the standard. In addition, these solutions may not be scalable or may require too much overhead for implementation by a large NSP.